Deterministic qubit transfer between orbital and spin angular momentum of single photons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a high-fidelity, reversible method for transferring quantum information from a photon’s orbital angular momentum to its polarization using a tunable q-plate and Sagnac interferometer.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, deterministic transfer scheme for qubits between orbital angular momentum and polarization in single photons.

Findings

High transfer fidelity achieved

Low loss in the transfer process

Reversible quantum information transfer demonstrated

Abstract

In this work we experimentally implement a deterministic transfer of a generic qubit initially encoded in the orbital angular momentum of a single photon to its polarization. Such transfer of quantum information, completely reversible, has been implemented adopting a electrically tunable q-plate device and a Sagnac interferomenter with a Dove's prism. The adopted scheme exhibits a high fidelity and low losses.